Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Tue Feb 18th Todays News

Mr Bolt, I am addressing this to you. I need your help. Firstly, let me apologise for shamelessly using your name to gain followers. I have tried hard to keep the page open, free and virtuous. I aim for the quirky, and sometimes get the weird. I aim for the off beat, but sometimes get the off colour. I guess you can't get critical thinking by demanding it or enforcing it. Some have taken to begging for moderators to ban people for politely saying what others don't like. I have taken to deleting comments without explanation, because the nasty ones know they can complain about the explanations and get FB to ban administration. I had not known there was a lunar right in Australian politics before I began moderating this page. But it exists, in all of its' dumb, shameless glory. I am not in agreement with you on all issues all the time, but respect our differences of opinion.We have interacted before, years ago, on your site, but I'm not holding you to remember it. What I'm asking for now is related to what I was asking for then. Only, I'm desperate. I have testimony before the Royal Commission into institutional responses to Pedophilia. The Royal Commission has accepted my testimony, but given it a low priority. They will not investigate it further, but will include it in their report, in years to come. However, my reason for making that submission has made powerful enemies within Australian Government and public service. I have been issued a death threat from a mafia type hit man who is serving time. I have had my citizenship denied, and evidence of it illegally destroyed by a Premier of NSW. I have been abused at my workplace for being fat, and been declared partially disabled, accused of being too fat to teach Mathematics. I am fat, so the charge is hard for me to dismiss. When my students became targeted by my abusers, I resigned from teaching to speak out publicly. That was in 2007. I tried to time it so my complaint was heard after the NSW election and before the Australian one, so as to not intrude into the political cycle. But the ALP panicked, and have smeared me badly, so that no one will report my complaints, and no one will say why. There is no legal impediment for me to work, but no one will hire a teacher who has been political and conservative. I recently lost my library I have been building since I learned to read. About $50k worth of books, videos, CDs and DVDs. Soon I will have to sell my home. Unless there is a remedy for my issues. But the Royal Commission don't view it as important to give me a remedy. I must petition for one. I can't petition the Royal Commission, that isn't their job. But there are those whose job it would be to act on my testimony. The NSW Dept of Ed. The Premier of NSW. The NSW Police. The Federal Police. The attorney General's office of either NSW or Australia. Or the Prime Minister. I've not yet set up the petition. But I am asking for help. Would you help me, Mr Bolt?
===

Mrs BRONWYN BISHOP (Mackellar) (15:26): My question is to the Prime
Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to her statement that she retains
complete confidence in the member for Dobell but that she had not
undertaken a thorough investigation into the allegations surrounding
that member. Has she now conducted an investigation of her own into the
allegations surrounding the member for Dobell and is she satisfied that
her confidence in the member for Dobell is warranted?
Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (15:27): I thank the member for the
question. It gives me the opportunity to say I have complete confidence
in the member for Dobell. I think he is doing a fine job representing
the people of his constituency in this place and raising their concerns
in this parliament, as is appropriate for a local member. I look forward
to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to
come.

FORMER Labor MP Craig Thomson has been found guilty
of defrauding the Health Services Union during his time as national
secretary.
Melbourne magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg today ruled Mr Thomson had
dishonestly obtained a financial advantage by using his union credit
card to pay for prostitutes.

Labor has been soft on union corruption. The links between Labor and the
union movement need to be investigated by the royal commission into the
union movement.
PS: Has anyone ever met such a brazen, shameless liar?

Four Corners last night showed a brilliant documentary on North
Korea. That it is a murderous tyranny capable of the most appalling
cruelty is no secret. But what was startling - at least for me - was the
secret footage it showed of North Korean civilians defying authority. Here is a clip from the documentary, and below is the relevant part of the script - the part that gives hope:

NARRATOR: Behind closed doors, even members of the North Korean elite
have voiced unhappiness with the regime, like this businesswoman filmed
at a private lunch.
[subtitles]
1st MAN: All we’re saying is give us some basic rights, right? We don’t have any.
WOMAN: It’s not like that in China. In China, they’ve got freedom of
speech, you know. They went through the Cultural Revolution.
2ndWOMAN: We North Koreans are wise and very loyal. An uprising is still something we don’t understand.
1st MAN: But even that’s only to a certain point.
WOMAN: There can’t be a rebellion. They’ll kill everyone ruthlessly.
Yes, ruthlessly. The problem here is that one in three people will
secretly report you. That’s the problem. That’s how they do it.
2ndMAN: Let’s just drink up. There’s no use talking about it.
NARRATOR: The cynicism about their leaders comes partly from radical change in the way people make a living.
JIRO ISHIMARU: [through interpreter] Looking at footage shot inside
North Korea, we can see that a huge number of people have started doing
business with each other. This used to be illegal, and anyone caught
buying or selling for personal gain was severely punished.
NARRATOR: Illegal markets first began to appear when the state stopped
being able to feed its people during the famine. Today the state
tolerates them, but people are pushing the limits of private enterprise.
This woman is running an illegal private bus service. An army officer
tries to stop her from picking up passengers.
WOMAN: [subtitles] If you’re an officer, where are your stars then? Let
me see them then. Let me see your stars then. Where are your stars if
you’re an officer? Let me see your stars. Where are your stars if you’re
an officer?
OFFICER: Hey! Hey! Hey!
WOMAN: Hey! Hey! Hey! You bastard! You’re an ass-[deleted]!
JIRO ISHIMARU: [through interpreter] People’s willingness to confront or
ignore authority has become more and more common. People around the
world have this image of North Koreans as being brainwashed, but that’s
very mistaken. Often now, when North Koreans are challenged for
infringing a certain law, as long as the offense is not political, they
don’t hesitate to protest if they believe the law to be irrational.
NARRATOR: Until recently, it was illegal for women to wear pants.
Soldiers are arguing with this woman about breaking the dress code.
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Don’t hit me! Why are you hitting me?
OFFICER: [subtitles] Stop it, bitch!
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Watch your mouth. Don’t call me a bitch!
NARRATOR: The soldiers put an armband on her to mark her offense.
WOMAN IN PANTS: [subtitles] Those people are wearing trousers.
NARRATOR: But before long, she rips it off, and a senior officer steps in.
[subtitles]
SENIOR OFFICER: You’re not going to be quiet?
FEMALE OFFICER: You’re saying you don’t deserve this? Watch your mouth! Don’t call me a bitch.
SENIOR OFFICER: Please stop it.
WOMAN IN PANTS: Why aren’t you telling off those people wearing trousers? I’m so annoyed.

That decision has now been announced. It’s another terrible blow to
Geelong and to the Victorian Government, already struggling with one of
the highest unemployment rates in the country.
Note: an aluminium smelter produces what is rightly described as ”congealed electricity”. Our high power prices make such a smelter, and an old one at that, simply unaffordable.
UPDATE
More proof that governments just throw money away when they try to
subsidise a dying industry (with, no coincidence, a highly unionised
workforce). From June 2012:

The Australian and Victorian Governments will invest in a restructure of Alcoa’s Point Henry aluminium smelter in Geelong with more than $40 million in assistance to help ensure its economic sustainability and support more than 500 local jobs…
The Minister for Industry and Innovation, Greg Combet, said the $40
million in Federal funding recognised the challenges to the aluminium
sector from the high Australian dollar and low world aluminium prices.

So how stupid was Labor to give subsidies with the one hand, but then take a carbon tax with the other? From 2012:

MORE than 300 jobs are set to be lost as a Norwegian company plans to shut its aluminium smelter in the NSW Hunter Valley.
Norsk Hydro will shut down its Kurri Kurri plant, as low metals
prices and the strong Australian dollar impact its profitability, the
company said today… A subsequent review of the plant has revealed
... its long-term viability would be negatively affected by increasing energy costs and the carbon tax, Norsk Hydro said.

In fact, Labor fully expected and planned for its carbon tax to kill
aluminium plants such as Alcoa’s, which is also battling a high dollar,
ageing technology and low international prices:

The climate change scenarios modelled in this report are
based around the Commonwealth Treasury modelling of the Government’s
Clean Energy Future proposal… Specifically, aluminium output is
projected to decrease by about 31% by 2020…

The Australian Aluminium Council last year warned how devastating the tax would be:

This imposes a carbon cost on Australian aluminium producers of at
least $60 per tonne of aluminium compared to only $8 per tonne in
China.… This is putting jobs in Gladstone, Geelong, Hunter Valley,
Portland, Tasmania and Western Australia on the line when no other
country is exposing their industry to the same risks.

Alcoa to the Gillard Government last October:

Given the extraordinary electricity intensity of aluminium smelting
and limitations of supply opportunities in Victoria, Alcoa has no
flexibility to obtain its long term power needs from anywhere other than
Victorian brown coal-fired generators… This situation will impact the
future economic viability of these two smelters ...

UPDATE
Former Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery tells the ABC this morning that
the closure of Alcoa is just a “cost” of saving us from having a
“filthy planet”.
Green policies mean longer job queues. The AWU members at Alcoa should
demand their union explain why it backed the Labor carbon tax that’s
helped cost their jobs. Remember this promise?

I have long argued that aluminium is the clearest example of the
stupidity of the carbon tax. The bauxite will now be shipped overseas to
be refined. This will increase the amount shipped seven fold, using
seven times the amount of fuel. The bunker fuel burned by large ships is
the dirtiest fuel there is.The aluminium will now be refined in the
cheapest country available. Cheap power is dirty power - much worse than
using Australian power. Emissions can only rise as a result of the
counter productive carbon tax.

Scott Morrison has
performed even better as Immigration Minister than I predicted. It is
astonishing that no boats have arrived in more than eight weeks, despite
some Indonesian authorities’ refusal to cooperate. Morrison has also
smartened his media presentation, and his performance on Insiders on Sunday was faultless.
Yes, there is still much to do before the Government can claimed the
boats have indeed stopped. The sailing season is still to come. The boat
people in detention still need to be sent back home or resettled. But
this is a very good start, and a very good job advertisement for
Morrison, who is emerging as a potential Liberal leader (behind Joe
Hockey). I suspect Tony Abbott would also be comfortable with Morrison’s
brand of politics.
Morrison would still need to prove himself in another portfolio or two
to widen his experience and demonstrate this success with the boats was
no fluke.
So where would a canny Prime Minister - keen to nurture talent, promote
his agenda and confound his enemies - next place Morrison? Where
could a capable and articulate conservative be employed with great
profit?
I look at the ABC and cannot help thinking what tremendous good a Morrison could achieve that a Malcolm Turnbull won’t....

It has taken years, but finally some warmist scientists are publicly contradicting their more alarmist colleagues:

One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday
made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting
there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and
global warming.
Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said
the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current
of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south
than usual.
Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There
is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get
stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change,
it is outside our knowledge.’…
Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘co-ordinating lead author’ –
for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame
Julia Slingo.
Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.

Christopher Booker explains in The Spectator
that it’s not global warming that caused such ghastly floods in the
UK, but incompetence and a Green EU wetland plan. He lives near
Somerset, (SW England) so he started investigating the rising water six
weeks ago — which has now become widespread inundation there, with
damages estimated at over £100 million…
In the Spectator he writes that before 1996, local groups of farmers and
engineers managed the drains, but in 1996 the EA (Environmental Agency)
took over. Regular dredging stopped happening, the pumping stations
were neglected (or stopped...), and the local drainage boards found it
hard to get anything done with the EA red tape.
Then things got worse. In 2002, “the Baroness Young of Old Scone, a
Labour peeress, became the agency’s new chief executive”. As Booker goes
on to note, she used to run the Royal Society for the Protection of
Birds and Natural England, not that that’s a bad thing per se, just that
she had different aims to the people who lived there. The locals saw
what was coming, they feared that the river had become choked and
silted, they wanted control back. Instead, what they got was some parts
of Somerset suddenly “returned to wetland” — but that, it seems, was
kinda the goal.
Booker and Richard North pored through documents and found remarkable
quotes. According to the Baroness, the cheapest way to get a wetland
was to “stop drainage” and let “nature take its course”.

No it’s not. As Paul Homewood reveals at his website Not A Lot Of People
Know That, it was considerably wetter between November 1929 and January
1930. Yes, this January was wet, but it still only ranks as the
sixteenth wettest month since records began in 1766…

3. Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson should resign.

No, he shouldn’t. Paterson is one of the few politicians to have shown
any integrity in this crisis. Unlike his Conservative colleagues David
Cameron and Philip Hammond he has not sought to curry easy favour with
the green lobby by blaming the floods on ‘climate change’. He was the
first senior politician to visit the Somerset Levels and grasp the truth
about the problem: that the floods were a direct consequence of
Environmental Agency and European Union policy…

8. Dredging the rivers wouldn’t have made much difference anyway.

Yes, of course, that’s what environmental apologists would like you to
believe… But of course they’re talking rubbish. The only way floodwater
can escape is out to sea: hence the need for keeping the conduits for
such a process - our rivers - as free-flowing as possible i.e. with
regular dredging.
For clear visual evidence of what has gone wrong over the years, have a
look at the before and after pictures of the River Parrett unearthed by
Richard North at his Eureferendum blog.
The old black and white one shows the river to be wide and free-flowing.
The more recent colour one shows how badly the banks have been allowed
to silt up…

Delingpole deals with the last lie superbly:

10. “Lessons will be learned.”

No they won’t. Which is the main reason I wanted to write
this list: as a handy reminder of all the things that the government,
the liberal-left MSM, the greenies and the rest are going to do their
damnedest to make us forget as quickly as possible.
The fact - and this cannot be restated often enough - is that these
floods are a man-made disaster. But the man-made element has nothing
whatsoever to do with anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Rather it is the
result of deliberate policy, initiated by the UN (Agenda 21), the
European Union and its amen corner the Environment Agency, designed to
create wildlife habitats at the expense of humans.

(Warburton has today clarified that he means he is sceptical that man-made carbon dioxide is the major cause of global warming.)
Excellent, but this distinction is too much for a sub-editor at The Australian:

Look, the problem with the Renewable Energy Target is it’s imposing a
cost of $1.6 billion across the economy. It amounts to about five per
cent of household energy costs now and that’s just going to mushroom
over time… [T]he cost of the RET to average households is around $102
per annum…
It’s costing up to $525 per tonne to abate carbon under the renewable
energy target. There are low-cost alternatives available and,
effectively, we’re undermining our emissions reduction effort by
persisting with the Renewable Energy Target…
Look, the Renewable Energy Target is - it’s corporate welfare on a massive scale directed towards the renewable sector.

Wilson also scoffs at the Left’s outrage at the appointment of Warburton and Brian Fisher to review the RET:

SARAH FERGUSON: Dick Warburton is a
self-avowed sceptic. His views on the subjects are well known. Is he an
appropriate person to be leading this review?
BURCHELL WILSON: Absolutely. Dick led the charge against Australia
having the highest carbon tax in the world. You’ll realise that
Australians per capita pay $380 per head under the carbon tax, whereas
Europeans under the ETS, they’re paying about $1.50…
SARAH FERGUSON: We’ve also got Brian Fisher, who has a long history of
being opposed to pricing mechanisms in this area. It does sound as
though the outcome of the review is to some extent preordained?
BURCHELL WILSON: Brian Fisher is a first-rate economist, one of the best
in the country… [He] will ... tell you ... the Renewable Energy
Target is high-cost, it’s inefficient as a means of abating carbon, and
if that’s your primary objective with respect to the RET, then we should
scrap it altogether.

The federal government is leaning towards a two-pronged response to
Qantas Airways of a debt guarantee to provide short-term relief and
pushing Parliament over the longer term to repeal the Qantas Sale Act
that keeps the company Australian controlled…
Providing a debt guarantee is now viewed within government as
inevitable, even though there remains a deep reluctance to expose
taxpayers to any liability…
Prime Minister Tony Abbott sought to increase the pressure on Monday by
warning Labor that the future of Qantas was at stake if ultimately the
opposition did now allow Parliament to repeal the 1992 Qantas Sale Act.

(T)he provision of a government guarantee ... may seem like a cheap
round because the company will pay a fee for the guarantee. But there is
always the chance that, if the company’s performance does not lift, it
will default on its borrowings and the taxpayer will be left holding the
baby…
Labor should come clean about its refusal to allow the Qantas Sale Act
to be rescinded. This is the least costly means of helping the company
and the one that should be pursued with great vigour at this point.

(Thanks to reader Peter of Bellevue Hill. Thanks to reader Michael for
pointing out my confusion of creditors with debtors. Fixed now.)

Good news. Tim Wilson, the new Human Rights Commissioner, signals that he will fight the Attorney-General who appointed him:

More immediately, the federal government has flagged
reforms to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act to remove
unnecessary restrictions on free speech that offends, insults,
humiliates or intimidates people on the basis of their race, colour or
national or ethnic origin.
There are diverse views on whether section 18C should be left alone, modestly changed or fully repealed. I will be arguing for its full repeal on the grounds it conflicts with other human rights and therefore does not meet the threshold for restricting speech.

Terrific performance by Professor Jim Allan on Q&A
last night, attacking the carbon tax, mocking our award system and
putting the rude, ill-informed and inarticulate Voice of Youf in her
place. (By the way, why does host Tony Jones produce one token Muslim
after another, but never a token Buddhist?) Allan’s defence of political
debate against the Voice of Youf’s demand for a Kumbayah approach to
global warming was superb.
Heather Ridout once again reminds us what a disgrace it was for the
Australian Industry Group to have her lead it. Here she was prattling on
about “the science” of global warming as if it were monolithic and
proved the wisdom of having an emission trading system which does
virtually nothing to change the climate, but which sure hurts business.
Here she was praising the awards system that strangles small business,
and apparently defending the subsidies to big car makers that the
Productivity Commission reported were a drag on the economy. Her
attempts to chip Allan for raising the US as a counter-example were
pathetic.
Tony Burke is a fine street-fighter in a terrible cause, but I was
struck by how many points the often-underrated Eric Abetz took off him,
particularly over the renewable energy target. Few Ministers would be as
in control of their brief as Abetz, and none make fewer mistakes.

In December, at a forum of health ministers from
Australia and New Zealand, assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash made it
clear that she was sceptical about a plan to place a health star rating
on the front of food packets.
She was concerned that the Regulatory Impact Statement, requested by the
Office of Best Practice and Regulation in the middle of last year, had
not been produced. Nash ordered the department to calculate both costs
and benefits and to report back to the forum in June…
Kathy Dennis, the assistant secretary in charge of the Healthy Living and Food Policy branch, decided to press ahead anyway.
Two weeks ago, the department launched a website, http://www.healthstarrating.com.au, explaining the forthcoming health star rating system that the minister had yet to approve.
A ministerial adviser contacted Dennis expressing the minister’s
concern, but the website remained in place. Nash’s chief of staff,
Alastair Furnival, called Dennis to reinforce the message. Dennis stuck
to her guns.
The minister was obliged to take the matter to the acting head of the
department, Mark Booth. On Booth’s instructions, the website was taken
down and Dennis was moved to other duties…

The mutiny at [the Department of Health] is not an isolated case…
Across the board, from the Climate Change Commission to the ABC, the
Human Rights Commission and even Infrastructure Australia, all are
openly hostile to the popularly elected government.

But asserting the authority of the Minister has been pushed. Furnival
was slimed in Left-wing newspapers as having a sinister conflict of
interest, having in his past worked for food companies, and he has been
forced to resign. Hope the journalists are happy.

I’m worried that some
of the Liberals’ most effective cultural warriors are being put out to
lush pastures when there are great battles to win:

Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer is set to be named high commissioner to London in a move that would cut short the term of the Labor appointee Mike Rann…
Victoria’s erstwhile Labor premier Steve Bracks was blocked on the eve
of his departure for the United Nations post in New York, shortly after
the Coalition came to power last year. He has since been replaced by the
former Howard finance minister Nick Minchin in a move criticised as
jobs for the boys.

Note, by the way, the Age writer harrumphing about “jobs for
the boys” after having been perfectly happy with the appointment by
Labor of the Labor politicians these Liberals replace.

Audit Bureau of Circulation figures for the last 3 months of 2013 show
another huge fall ... with Fairfax Media’s The Age and Sydney Morning
Herald down by a shocking 17% from the same period of 2012.
News Corp’s Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph fared slightly better, but
still fell 12%, after even bigger falls in the previous quarter…
In absolute terms the Herald and Age are now selling not much more than 130,000 copies each a day.
Meanwhile, the mighty Herald Sun has sunk below 400,000 and the Daily Telegraph below 300,000…
But ... the news on advertising revenue is even worse… Fairfax Media’s
2013 results show that print advertising revenue for its two big Metro
mastheads—the Herald and the Age—fell by 25% last financial year, or by
almost exactly $100 million…
Fairfax has shed some 2,000 jobs , announced the closure of its two
biggest printing plants, shut down magazines, moved to a tabloid format
and got rid of some its best-known writers .
On the plus side, the Age and Herald have put up paywalls on their
popular websites… Last year Fairfax’s digital ad revenue rose by only
$5.5 million, while its print ad revenue fell $100 million, or almost 20
times as much.

THE Abbott government faces a fresh test of its relationship with
Jakarta amid new allegations an Australian intelligence agency spied on
Indonesia last year and passed the information it gathered to the US.

In the latest damaging leak of top-secret information from former US
security analyst Edward Snowden, The New York Times says an Australian
intelligence agency spied on a US law firm representing Indonesia in a
trade dispute with the US.
The report is expected to add to the ongoing tensions with Jakarta over
the Coalition’s strategy for stopping asylum-seeker boats at sea and
revelations last year that the Australian Signals Directorate, formerly
the Defence Signals Directorate, listened to the phone conversations of
Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and associates, including
his wife.
While the earlier eavesdropping claims concerned events under the Rudd Labor government in 2009, the new document refers to activity under way just a year ago, in February last year, under the term of the Gillard government.

===“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” - Romans 8:35,37

Hagar had once found deliverance there and Ishmael had drank from the water so graciously revealed by the God who liveth and seeth the sons of men; but this was a merely casual visit, such as worldlings pay to the Lord in times of need, when it serves their turn. They cry to him in trouble, but forsake him in prosperity. Isaac dwelt there, and made the well of the living and all-seeing God his constant source of supply. The usual tenor of a man's life, the dwelling of his soul, is the true test of his state. Perhaps the providential visitation experienced by Hagar struck Isaac's mind, and led him to revere the place; its mystical name endeared it to him; his frequent musings by its brim at eventide made him familiar with the well; his meeting Rebecca there had made his spirit feel at home near the spot; but best of all, the fact that he there enjoyed fellowship with the living God, had made him select that hallowed ground for his dwelling. Let us learn to live in the presence of the living God; let us pray the Holy Spirit that this day, and every other day, we may feel, "Thou God seest me." May the Lord Jehovah be as a well to us, delightful, comforting, unfailing, springing up unto eternal life. The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails; happy is he who dwells at the well, and so has abundant and constant supplies near at hand. The Lord has been a sure helper to others: his name is Shaddai, God All-sufficient; our hearts have often had most delightful intercourse with him; through him our soul has found her glorious Husband, the Lord Jesus; and in him this day we live, and move, and have our being; let us, then, dwell in closest fellowship with him. Glorious Lord, constrain us that we may never leave thee, but dwell by the well of the living God.

Edom's princes saw the whole country left desolate, and counted upon its easy conquest; but there was one great difficulty in their way--quite unknown to them--"The Lord was there;" and in his presence lay the special security of the chosen land. Whatever may be the machinations and devices of the enemies of God's people, there is still the same effectual barrier to thwart their design. The saints are God's heritage, and he is in the midst of them, and will protect his own. What comfort this assurance yields us in our troubles and spiritual conflicts! We are constantly opposed, and yet perpetually preserved! How often Satan shoots his arrows against our faith, but our faith defies the power of hell's fiery darts; they are not only turned aside, but they are quenched upon its shield, for "the Lord is there." Our good works are the subjects of Satan's attacks. A saint never yet had a virtue or a grace which was not the target for hellish bullets: whether it was hope bright and sparkling, or love warm and fervent, or patience all-enduring, or zeal flaming like coals of fire, the old enemy of everything that is good has tried to destroy it. The only reason why anything virtuous or lovely survives in us is this, "the Lord is there."

If the Lord be with us through life, we need not fear for our dying confidence; for when we come to die, we shall find that "the Lord is there;" where the billows are most tempestuous, and the water is most chill, we shall feel the bottom, and know that it is good: our feet shall stand upon the Rock of Ages when time is passing away. Beloved, from the first of a Christian's life to the last, the only reason why he does not perish is because "the Lord is there." When the God of everlasting love shall change and leave his elect to perish, then may the Church of God be destroyed; but not till then, because it is written, Jehovah Shammah, "The Lord is there."

===

Thaddaeus

[Thăddae'us] - breast, one that praises or man of heart.

One of the twelve apostles of Christ (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18), also called Labbeus, or Lebbeus, and sometimes identified as Jude, who wrote the epistle bearing his name. This apostle then, was known by three names, two of which were terms of endearment used toward him from early days. In this least known among the apostles, we have a man who discovered that love is the secret of obedience and that obedience is the secret of blessedness.

===

Today's reading: Leviticus 21-22, Matthew 28 (NIV)

Rules for Priests

1 The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: 'A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean for any of his people who die, 2 except for a close relative, such as his mother or father, his son or daughter, his brother, 3 or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband--for her he may make himself unclean. 4 He must not make himself unclean for people related to him by marriage, and so defile himself....

Jesus Has Risen

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men....

Translate

Subscribe To

Followers

Translator

About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..